What the hell is Ditch the Tiara?

Redefining the word beautiful...one dirty, sweaty, bruised up mile at a time, with a few downward dogs along the way...

Sunday, February 17, 2008

What it all means

So. I thought today might be a good day to explain what "Ditch the Tiara" really means.

Quite honestly, it took me days to think of a title that could capture the essence of who I am. Growing up, I was a wicked tomboy. My first bike was a dirt bike. I preferred to play with boys over girls and I especially liked climbing fences. My brother and I used to beat the crap out of each other when we were kids...blood, scratches, bruises, not very feminine I tell you. As I got older, I tried to get into the girly stuff and it hit me somewhere at the end of highschool. However, I never really 'fit in' to any one clique. I always wanted to be amongst the cool crowd - those girls who were natural beauty queens and very popular -you know the ones who woke up looking better than I did after I primped for 3 hours *sigh* College was more of the same. I thought that being pretty was important and could never leave the house without makeup and hair done. But I never gave a damn about working out or eating healthy. Boy, has ALL THAT changed.

When I started running marathons 10 years ago, I had a very distorted sense of beauty and strength. I was always so self-conscious of how I looked. Running skirts were unheard of back then but oh lordy, was spandex in. So nasty!

However, within the last 2 years all this has finally changed thanks to Nicole DeBoom, founder of SkirtSports. I have met amazing and beautiful women that have encouraged me to know NO limits. I have come to realize that beauty has nothing to do with how you look but with how you feel. Beauty is comfort and believing in yourself and more importantly, beauty to me is about pushing yourself beyond limits and never giving up. It's about recognizing that I have strength both physically and mentally to take on the challenges that I have and to embrace the challenge that lies ahead...Ironman.

"Ditching the Tiara" is symbolic of ridding myself of all the self-depricating and self-loathing feelings about what I used to think beauty was - thick and lustrous hair, curvy figure, manicured nails, fashionable clothing, drinking elegant drinks and always looking 'perfect' etc - just to fit in...all of the things I am not. I love to get dirty from a ride after a huge rain, I get snotty noses and dry cracked skin from running in the cold and snow and I have wet, ratty hair after my open water swims with HUGE goggle rings around my eyes. Cracking open a beer with Mike after a race is the best...These are the times when I feel 'beautiful.' Once beauty is found on the inside, it has no other choice but to radiate on the outside and the great thing is that I can be 'beautiful' and do ALL those things in a SKIRT! Looking sexy while sprinting past a man at the end of marathon is pretty freakin' cool though, if I must say...Thanks Nicole!!

Unfortunately...I do have to pull out the tiara just one last time because I lost a bet last night at bowling to Wicked Pissah! - so, I will be donning one next Saturday at the Snowman Stampede 10 miler... I will definitely be practicing my beauty queen wave in the meantime...